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Hansaem's phone rings at a little past two in the morning.
He only fully realizes what's happening on the second ring and grapples blindly for it in the dark. The buzz of the vibration on his bedside table is a sharp cut through the quiet of his apartment at night. He picks it up, squinting at the bright light of the screen's caller ID, and reads the words Yoon Ena.
Hansaem answers before he's fully awake, even as annoyed as he is by the late-night call. "Ena," he says blearily. "What's happening?"
For a moment there's only quiet on the other end. As Hansaem's brain begins to come online, he realizes that he can hear Ena breathing on the other end, harsh and shaky. Annoyance shifts to concern in a heartbeat, and he shifts upright with one hand, legs swinging out of bed. "Ena?" he repeats.
"Hansaem?" she replies, finally, almost sounding confused herself. "I..."
"What's going on? Are you okay?"
He can't hear anything out of the ordinary on the other end — no other voices, no sounds of nightlife. Just Ena's shaky breaths and the distinct sense of something being wrong. Finally she replies again, her quiet voice sounding lost. "I didn't mean to call you. Sorry."
"Ena—"
The sounds stop entirely as she hangs up the phone. Hansaem pulls it away from his ear, looks at the display again. 2:07 a.m. He's grabbing his coat, holster, and keys and texting her that he's coming over before he can even finish thinking about it.
…
The drive over is quick, quicker than it probably should have been, and her house is dark as he approaches. She still hasn't replied to his text, but there's no signs of anything out of the ordinary. Hansaem remembers what she'd said about their door codes and gets hers right on the second try, shaking his shoes off carefully in the entryway.
It’s been a decade since he’s actually been inside the place. The house is still and quiet, and a single lamp is on in the hallway. Nobody’s in the den or the room behind it, which he checks out of instinct. Instead Hansaem quietly creeps up the stairs, muscle memory taking over as he heads for what he knows to be Ena's room. There's a light on that he can see underneath the door, and he eases it open carefully.
Ena's sitting up in the middle of her bed, staring vacantly downwards. Her hands are gripping the comforter tightly, and her phone lies abandoned next to her. Hansaem realizes she's shaking, tears streaming down her face, as he steps into the room. "Ena?"
She flinches slightly at her name, and her throat catches around the panicked breaths she's taking. Hansaem stands there, briefly bewildered. There's no external threat. Just Ena, panicking in her massive, empty house, alone in the dark. He quickly sheds his coat and holster and sits down in front of her, reaching for where her hands are grasping the sheets. "Ena, breathe," he says forcefully.
She claws at his hands as he holds hers. "Hansaem —"
"C'mon, just breathe. You're safe."
Ena sucks in another shaky breath and then, as if her strings have been cut, collapses forwards onto Hansaem. He catches her instinctively, startled as she lets out a strangled sob into the front of his shirt, fingers grasping at it wildly. Hansaem's palm flattens against her back, feeling wildly out of his depth. They’re friends, but they aren’t this close. Or they weren’t, he thinks. He supposes they are now. What kind of a friendship do you have with someone you’ve watched people die with? They know each other better than anyone. Eventually that would have included the cracks in their armor too.
There's nothing for him to do but pull her slightly closer as she cries, deep, heaving sobs that pain Hansaem to hear. He manages to get her to grab one of his hands and squeezes firmly, trying to take steady breaths of his own for her to emulate. He's never seen her like this. Her grief at Dream Land had been her own, and then she’d locked herself in her house for a week. He's seen her upset, and confused, and lost — but even any slightly negative emotion feels like an unmoored version of her usual upbeat self. The Ena he's holding is trying not to drown.
The same goes for me, she'd said once. How do you think I felt when my uncle died?
Once I'm completely convinced that you're not the killer — I'll think about it then, he'd said. For not the first time since that moment, Hansaem is struck by how horribly abrupt Ena's childhood was.
Eventually her sobs turn into shuddery breaths and her fingers uncurl slightly from his shirt. Hansaem runs his thumb over the knuckles of her hand that he's holding and ignores the wet spot from where her head's been pressed against his chest. He doesn't dare to say anything before she's ready, as much as he’s itching to speak, to find out exactly what happened and what to do about it. Slowly Ena leans back and sits up, wiping at her eyes carefully as she takes a deep breath in.
"Sorry," she finally says, voice smaller than he's used to.
Hansaem can't help it — he scoffs lightly. "What are you apologizing for?"
Ena looks exhausted. She won't look directly at him, either. "For dragging you out here."
Hansaem pokes her in the shoulder with his free hand and tsks. "I came because I wanted to. I was worried," he says. "Ena — are you okay?"
Her face crumples slightly again. "I had a dream about the fire," she says, voice attempting to maintain her usual composure. " And — I always used to call Seungjoo, when the nightmares were bad."
Oh. Hansaem had known she had trouble sleeping — she’d obliquely mentioned her insomnia before. He hadn’t realized it was bad enough to have her therapist on late-night speed dial. “Called me instead, huh?” he says, aiming for levity and falling slightly flat.
“I didn’t mean to,” she replies. “I just — grabbed the phone. I didn’t realize it was you until you answered.”
“I’m not mad. I told you I was worried, didn’t I?”
She nods, but she still won’t look at him. Hansaem doesn’t have the first idea what to do in this situation. It’s hard to conceptualize that Lee Seungjoo was a good therapist at all, after everything, but he knows she wouldn’t have been such a consistent presence in Ena’s life if she wasn’t. And her education was real regardless. “What — what would she do to help?” he asks awkwardly.
“Seungjoo?” Ena asks, and rubs a hand over her face as he nods. “Count me through breathing exercises. I mostly just dreamt of my uncle’s death — all the parts I couldn’t remember. Usually that I had killed him. She would remind me that I didn’t, go through all the facts.”
He knows that Ena isn’t mad at him, exactly, for his years-long suspicion. She’s said she would have suspected herself regardless, and she would’ve been interrogated whether he had handed in that report or not. She knows that he trusts her — she’d made him prove it countless times during their investigation. It doesn’t stop the pang of guilt. He keeps his eyes on her, steady. “Is that what you dreamed about this time? But with the fire?”
She’s very, very still. Then she nods, slowly, biting her lip. “Hansaem, I can’t remember.”
Hansaem sighs, squeezes her hand again. He’d told her what happened after they were both questioned at the station, but he’ll do so again if she needs it — recount the facts. “You didn’t kill her,” he says. “I was at the funeral home when you found her. I don’t know what you talked about while I was driving. I got there around 1:30 a.m. She was standing behind the fence of the carousel when I found you both.”
Ena’s hand twitches, but he keeps going, as steadily as he can. “I told her to come out from inside the fence and that she was under arrest. She didn’t listen. She pulled out a lighter, lit the carousel on fire, and dropped it. She’d doused it in gasoline. And then she —” here he, too, has to take a pause — “she climbed into one of the carriages and let herself burn. She’d already poisoned herself; they found traces from the bottle afterward.
“Look at me,” he says, and she finally does, eyes teary with grief. “You didn’t kill her. Okay? You didn’t. I’m sorry she did it to herself.”
Ena gives another shuddery breath and leans into him — no longer crying but still shaken. Hansaem wraps his arm around her again, feels the cool air from the small fan on in her room gently tousle his hair. It’s so late at this point, but if he leaves he won’t be able to sleep from worry. He sighs and chides her softly, low voice rough. “What am I going to do with you?”
She gives a halfhearted shrug. Hansaem sighs again and shuffles over to the other side of her bed, muffled groaning as several joints pop in retaliation for the lack of movement while he’d been sitting down. Ena stares as he pats at her extra pillows and slowly lies down on top of the covers. “C’mon,” he says, feeling suddenly self-conscious about it. “You said you sleep better at my place. Maybe it’ll still work if I’m here?”
Ena gives a sad smile. “Okay,” she agrees, and slowly lies back as well. Hansaem pulls her comforter back up around her as she settles, her fingers twitching towards his slightly. He splays his palm out, a silent offer, and she takes it quietly. “I can’t leave now anyways,” Hansaem says. “I’d sleep through my shift by the time I get home and go back to bed. And then who will you bother if they fire me?”
There’s a watery laugh. “I’ll come bother you at your new job. Or I’ll just keep bothering your unit. I think Choi’s scared of me.”
Hansaem considers it, nods. “Probably,” he agrees. “That’s what he gets for all his whining.”
“Ah, Hansaem, you’re so rude,” Ena says, voice sleepy. “I know you don’t mean it, though. Choi said you’re nice to him.”
He hmphs, watching out the corner of his eye as Ena nestles in further. She looks exhausted — understandably so. Hansaem’s own interrupted sleep is catching up with him too. She shifts again, looking at him through half-closed eyes.
“What if I never remember?” she asks quietly.
Hansaem breathes in, exhales slowly. “Then you don’t remember,” he says. He knows it isn’t what she wants to hear. “I think… you’ll be okay. Regardless.”
He drifts back to their conversation in the car, after visiting Lee Miyoung’s father. When do you think he’ll find out his daughter is dead? Will finding out now hurt him less?
It’ll hurt the same amount. The time it takes to live through a loss like that is the same either way.
“Just get some sleep,” he says. “Okay?”
There’s no response —Ena’s already out when he turns to look at her.
Well, Hansaem thinks, settling back against the pillows himself. Small miracles, and all.
…
In the end, when they finally wake up in the morning, Hansaem’s slept through his alarm anyways. Sunlight streams in through the windows, and Ena’s attached to him like a limpet. His neck hurts. He’s staring at the ceiling in annoyed resignation when Ena somehow senses that he’s awake and shifts, yawning as she sits up and flails about for her phone.
“Oh,” she says. “Hansaem. It’s nine o’clock.”
“Yes.”
“Hm.”
He sighs. The things he does for her — the things he would do for her. “You’re buying coffee.”